


Kronos's Revenge

by CrimsonWriter



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon Divergence - Sea of Monsters, Canon Divergence - The Last Olympian, F/M, dumped into alternate universe, dumped into the past, look the tags don't make sense because of time travel, two different canon divergences because two different universes are affected
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-03-21 03:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13732623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonWriter/pseuds/CrimsonWriter
Summary: Kronos is the Lord of Time. Youreallythink that his dust-i-fic-ation ended with Percy being thrown across the Throne Room and only survived because of the Achilles' Curse?No. That's not quite as interesting (and traumatic, and entertaining) as this. No, Kronos threw Percy back in time.





	1. Bippity Boppity BOOM

Percy drove the blade home.

An explosion of light. Percy gripped the knife with both hands, the sensation grounding him. Heat blistered every inch of exposed skin, and he could distantly feel a tornado of wind whirling around him and Luke (Kronos?), dust and debris stinging against his raw skin.

And then, nothing.

Percy squeezed his eyes shut, having made his acquaintance with several explosions over the years: normally there was the initial burst, and then there was a pause where time seems to stop and one's heart drops (in disappointment, if one is a pyromaniac, or in fear, if one doesn't like explosions but is well aware of what exactly goes on for one reason or another), and then there was the big one. The one that was a thousand times worse than the initial blast.

He braced himself to be meeting his uncle sooner than he thought.

 _Power_.

Nothingness.

* * *

Percy woke to the ceiling of Camp Half-Blood's infirmary.

"Ah, our guest is awake."

 _Chiron_.

"Strange afterlife scene," Percy croaked, and winced. It sounded like he had a frog for his voice and someone had poured a truckload of salt over the poor amphibian.

"No, no, you are quite alive," the centaur said, chuckling. "You did give us quite a scare, however, appearing like you did."

"How am I alive?" the sea's son rasped. "I fully expected to die…"

"What were you doing?" Chiron asked. He seemed genuinely interested.

Percy struggled to sit up, his sea green eyes locked on his mentor, tracing over his face. He had less stress wrinkles. His face wasn't as lined. His eyes were happier.

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" Percy whispered.

Brown eyebrows lifted slightly. "Should I?"

"You should," Percy confirmed. "I got in trouble often enough."

"What did—"

"Sir?"

Percy swallowed at the voice. A voice that he recognized. A voice that died on a quest at the beginning of the summer.

A dark head, followed by a dark neck, followed by a buff body, entered the room. Percy took a deep breath and exhaled shakily. He patted his pockets; Riptide was there. There was a window behind his bed. He had failed. Kronos was still around, and for some reason they had kept him alive, and now they were torturing him with dead friends and happy mentors, things that would have been if he had died when he was young or if he hadn't been born at all.

"The part for your wheelchair," Beckendorf explained shortly.

"Thank you, Beckendorf," Chiron said, taking the part from the teen's outstretched hand.

The teen exited without a backwards glance.

Percy gathered his energy, shifting in the infirmary bed, muscles coiled.

Chiron noticed. "You have nothing to be afraid of. Beckendorf would have never harmed you."

"I know," Percy said, his voice dead. "I know, because he's dead."

And he somersaulted backwards, colliding with the glass behind his head feet-first, shattering the window, drawing Riptide. He fell probably fifteen feet, turning the impact into the roll but still having the wind knocked out of him. He shot to his feet, bolting for the forest, namely the creek. He could defend himself at the creek. It didn't matter who he was up against. He could break the time spell as long as he was near a source of water.

He could hear sounds of pursuit, and changed direction, heading for the cabins. He was fast. He was strong, unlike when he first arrived at Camp Half-Blood. True, he probably looked like a half-cooked hamburger patty from the burns and he hurt like Hades, but there was nothing wrong with his energy levels, cluing him into how long he'd been unconscious.

His leg muscles burned as he reached the cabins, running straight up the side of one in two long strides, bolting over the roof and then leaping, landing on the Ares cabin's wooden roof, crossing it in three short paces, and jumped again. He landed on his father's cabin, felt it singing in triumph, and continued on, leaping and pushing off of the marble side of Zeus's cabin, rolling with the impact and his feet hit the ground running.

He grinned as his pursuers let out shouts of surprise as the cabins' defenses acted too late to catch him but caught the follow-ups.

Percy fairly flew through the forest, his steps confident and sure, pivoting on a dime to avoid trees and compensating for the sliding tendencies of the leaves underfoot.

He heard hooves, and his grin fell, and he pushed his body faster, feet thumping in a faster rhythm, his heartbeat soaring in the thrill of the chase.

No wonder Wise Girl called him insane.

The son of the sea could hear the rushing sound of the creek. And then, he could see it, and in the next second he was in it, and he skidded to a stop in the creek's pebbly bed, turning to face the not-Chiron.

"You haven't gone past the Camp's boundaries," Chiron said calmly, his bow drawn.

"Of course not," Percy dismissed. "But I can protect myself here."

"You are standing in a creek, my boy."

Percy grinned.

Slowly, Campers revealed themselves in full armor, showing that they surrounded Percy. Then, as one, they charged.

Percy swept his arms up, and a wall of water completely encircling him erupted around him. Campers faltered in stride at this show of power, even Chiron's eyes widened at the implications.

And then, he felt something he had never felt before. It felt like someone was trying to tug away the water he was controlling. He was desperate, scared, awed.

 _Sorry, little brother,_ Percy thought. _But I value my life more than you value your Camp._

The Campers hit the creek and Percy froze the water in an unexpected flash-freeze with a sharp gesture with his sword, several with their ankles coated in ice and completely stuck. He could feel that outside force again working to unfreeze the water around the Campers' feet, and Percy let him.

Everyone backed off, scrambling out of the frozen creek. Percy let the creek melt back to normal, but keeping the barrier of water up between him and them. He could feel the force trying to tear the barrier down as well, but he kept it up fairly easily, and heard swearing.

He chuckled a little.

"Chiron…strong…incredible will…definitely…Poseidon."

"…tried?"

"I'm _thirteen,_ " the first voice snapped loudly. "Whoever he is, he has a lot more training than me!"

 _Probably quite a few more years of training, and plenty of near-death-experiences,_ Percy thought, amused.

"Sir? Would you mind lowering your barriers so that we may talk?"

 _I would, in fact, mind,_ Percy thought snappishly, his barriers not budging.

"Would you lower your barriers if we promised not to harm you, directly or indirectly?"

Percy swallowed, thinking. The water whirling in his barrier stilled and froze into ice reminiscent of glass.

"Good as you're going to get," he said, eyes roving over familiar—achingly familiar—faces. And they stopped just to the left of Chiron, where a boy with messy black hair and sea green eyes with a pale face stared back at him. He knew that face. He saw it in the mirror three years ago.

And, suddenly, it clicked, and he snarled in anger, his ice barriers shattering into a thousand pieces. "One last _gift_ to me," he snarled, stalking out of the river. "Well, Kronos, guess what. You have just made your own worst enemy."

Eyebrows raised.

"Sir?"

"I am at Camp Half-Blood, correct, Chiron?"

The centaur nodded warily.

"And you have finished your second quest?" Percy demanded of the teen standing next to Chiron—damn, had he really been that scrawny?

"Who the Hades _are_ you?" the teen demanded.

"I'll take that as a yes," Percy said curtly, and opened his mouth to continue, and then clamped it shut when an arrow was fired. Water flew around him, crackling and turning to ice in an instant, trapping the arrow. He broke off the arrowhead, sniffing it. "Mm. Tranquilizer. Good to know that at least you people aren't trying to kill me."

The ice half-melted, crackling and shifting, until it became a transparent piece of ice, where both parties were able to view the other easily. Percy's eyes roved over the faces, lingering on Annabeth's, where worry and fear and awe showed in her grey eyes. He paused as he saw faces of the dead: Silena, Beckendorf again, Pollux, Michael Yew…

He met his younger counterpart's eyes, sea green on sea green. And then his eyes shifted back to Chiron, whose brown eyes looked more like his old mentor's: saddened and understanding. Percy's eyes went back to his younger self, mind whirling, and he saw the exact moment that Percy Jr. realized just who he was.

Percy Jr. took a step forward, eyes wide, and Annabeth tried to stop him, flinging her hand that wasn't gripping her knife in front of Percy. Her eyebrows rose when he brushed her aside, moving towards him anyways, and decided that she would move with him if she couldn't stop him.

"Are you…?" _Me?_

Percy smirked, laughter lighting in his eyes. "Sure am."

"You'll show me?" _How to control all these random powers?_

He actually let out a little chuckle. "I will run you to the ground." _And you'll have a great time doing it._

"I'll learn what I can do, though," he responded, smiling.

Annabeth's mouth opened silently, her grey eyes widening with understanding, eyes flicking back and forth.

"You get him?" Percy Jr. asked. _Kronos._

"Sure tried my damnedest," Percy Sr. offered. "Never really got to see the end result."

Percy Jr. nodded. _We'll make sure of it in this time_.

"For those of us who don't speak Percy," Katie Gardener cut in dryly. "Please elaborate what the _Hades_ is going on."

And suddenly, Annabeth grinned. "May I introduce, Percy Jackson," she said, waving her hands in such a way that it could have been either Jr. or Sr.

"May _I_ introduce, Percy Jackson," Percy Jr. corrected, grinning just as widely, bowing gracefully in the direction of Percy Sr.

"Hey, Percy," Percy Sr. said, laughing as a thought occurred to him. "Wonder what Mom'll say?"

Percy Jr.'s delighted, mirthful laugh rang throughout the forest.


	2. Upfront Confrontations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy Sr. confronts various people who are important to him.

Percy found himself awake at five in the morning. Quietly, he jumped out of bed and went up to Thalia's Tree. He ran his hand along the bark, almost feeling the magic thrumming through the tree as it healed. Clarisse, the guard for that night, pretended to not notice him.

"Hey, Thals," he said softly. "Get better soon. Annabeth misses you."

He felt his own aches and pains settling as he leaned against her Tree, head thumping against her trunk.

It was utterly silent for a very long time, and then he said, very quietly, "Clarisse?"

"Yeah, Prissy?"

Despite himself, he smiled. "Wake me if Dad shows up, would you?"

"And if he doesn't?"

"When your shift gets off."

"That's in three hours."

"When your shift gets off," Percy repeated.

Silence fell again, save for the occasional chirp of a cricket or the breeze rustling the grasses on Half-Blood Hill. Percy dozed off again.

* * *

"Percy."

He stirred, automatically figuring out where he was before he remembered. Clarisse was calling him. He inhaled deeply. "Dad or shift?"

"Lord Poseidon is here."

Sea green eyes opened. He saw a slightly alarmed Clarisse and a slightly amused Poseidon.

"Thanks, Clarisse," Percy said softly. "Do you mind going and telling Chiron where I am so that they aren't running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off?"

She nodded. "Sure thing." The big girl nodded once to Poseidon, and left.

"You look well," Poseidon said, sitting down next to his son.

"It's the effect of the Golden Fleece," Percy said, nodding up to the yellow mass above him. "In the war, a lot of us ended up sleeping here when the nightmares and visions and hollow aches got to be too much."

"You seem very comfortable with me."

Percy smiled a little as he shut his eyes again. "You tend to get along with parents that you know care about you. I gave you grey hairs."

Poseidon gave a deep, rumbling laugh. "Grey hairs, huh?"

"At one point, I think I was giving your grey hairs grey hairs," Percy said dryly. "Hell, I was giving _Annabeth_ grey hairs, and she was the one that was right next to me for most of it."

Poseidon chuckled. Then he sobered. "How are you? What is going on?"

"Most of it was the Titans escaping their prisons," Percy said bluntly. "We put about half of them away in the last battle, assuming I got rid of Kronos. I think I did, but I'll never know. Your half was Typhoon. Well, your half after I kicked your ass into gear."

Poseidon snorted. "How did you do that?"

"I sat on your throne, beat your arguments with logic, and refused to move until you agreed that you would do it," Percy said matter-of-factly.

His father groaned. "I see why my grey hairs had grey hairs," Poseidon mumbled.

Percy chuckled. "It's your fault, you know. You're my father and I grew up with one Sally Jackson."

It was silent for half a minute, and then Poseidon asked: "And how are you?"

Percy hesitated. "Coping, at the moment. I'm waiting for Thals."

Poseidon nodded at the tree they were leaning against. "Thalia is dangerous."

"Even moreso when she's paired up with me," Percy answered coolly, opening his eyes to look at his father. All he could think about was their various misadventures—how Annabeth had called it before he'd ever met Thalia, when she said that they'd be best friends or worst enemies. It had taken a while for them to get over Thalia's possessiveness of Annabeth and how she shunned the closest male person to her 'little sister'. Once that phase was past, he'd never really gotten a chance to form a relationship more than somewhere between acquaintances and friends. He was going to change that this time.

After a moment, all Poseidon said was, "Be careful."

Percy smirked, leaning back against the tree and shutting his eyes. "Shall I pass on the message to Mini-Me?"

"No. I've already sent the letter."

Percy felt his father begin to get up and opened his eyes. "Hey, Dad."

"Yes, Percy?"

He looked up into his father's face mischievously. "You might be worried about Thalia and I getting close, Dad. But I'd watch out for my younger self. Zeus and Poseidon couples have happened before. Athena and Poseidon couples haven't."

Poseidon's eyes widened, and Percy broke out into peals of laughter, shutting his eyes as his father rolled his and began to glow.

When he opened his eyes again, Poseidon was gone.

* * *

Nothing much else happened that day, except for being gawked at and starting Percy Jr.'s training. That night, Percy never got to Poseidon's cabin and instead of settled by Thalia's Tree. It was Annabeth's turn to guard.

"You're supposed to be in your cabin."

Percy laughed softly. "And since when has that stopped me before?"

"Never," Annabeth admitted, laughing quietly along with him.

"Exactly," Percy murmured.

"The tree's pretty much healed," Annabeth observed.

"Not yet," Percy responded quietly. "Early tomorrow morning."

"What do you know?"

"Oh, I know quite a lot, Wise Girl."

She startled, looking at him. "You really are like our Percy."

"I _am_ your Percy, Annabeth. Just older, with a lot more experience."

"Two summers count as more experience?"

"You have no idea."

Annabeth opened her mouth to ask, and he cut her off with a, "And no, I'm not telling."

She glared at him, and he laughed. "C'mon, Wise Girl, you've read time-travel theories. What am I doing?"

Her face paled. "Changing history."

He shrugged. "Inadvertently. My very presence is different from last time around, because I certainly don't remember some scarred sixteen-year-old me running around Camp and weirding everyone out when I was thirteen."

She blinked. "Oh."

"And, I've figured that since I can't keep the timeline the same, I might as well jack it up so much that people would cringe if they knew what the original timeline was."

Annabeth groaned and buried her head in her hands as Percy laughed at her face.

"What if, by changing the timeline, you just make everything worse?"

Percy leaned forward, enveloping the younger girl in a hug—and gods, that was strange. "I blew up a volcano when I was fourteen, and led an army at fifteen. The war doesn't really start until this winter, and this time, they have to contend with a thirteen-year-old Percy Jackson _and_ a sixteen-year-old Percy Jackson. And I promise to clean up my own messes."

Her head thudded against his collarbone, laughing. "Yeah, right, Seaweed Brain."

"Well, I might have to get a bit of help," he said sheepishly.

He let go of her and sank down against the tree. He could feel Thalia stirring inside the tree, and it brought a smile to his face.

Annabeth was still shaking her head. "You are strange, Percy."

"Yes, you have told me that before," Percy said, laughing, settling against the tree to get some sleep.

"Good night, Seaweed Brain."

"'Night, Wise Girl."

It felt just like old times, running around and hoping not to die, as Grover had said before he ventured into the Underworld this last time. Thalia was at his back and Annabeth at his side, and he could feel both of their presences as clearly as if they were physically touching them.

Only Thalia didn't know that he existed and Annabeth was attached to Percy Jr.

It was dark when he opened his eyes again, automatically searching for Zoë's constellation, and realizing with a start that she was still alive.

 _If I can't kill you myself, Kronos, I will do my damnedest to help Percy do it,_ he vowed.

There was a deep, shuddering breath next to him, and he realized that Thalia was sprawled next to him and stirring. She started coughing, and Annabeth, stunned, stood there, rooted to the ground. Percy pushed her into a sitting position and supported her as she coughed up old blood and seven years' worth of snot.

Once she was done, Percy laid her back down.

"Where am I? Who are you?"

"You're at Camp Half-Blood, right on the border of it, actually," he said gently. "My name is Percy Jackson, I'm a son of Poseidon."

She blinked, her electric blue eyes snapping to his own. "Why am I alive?"

"When you were dying, your father turned you into a tree to protect the camp. Until recently, it was your soul and powers that surrounded the Camp and protected the inhabitants. The last couple of years have been chaotic, and have been because of the Titans rising again. Someone poisoned your tree, and I went on a quest to find something to cure you. When I got back from the quest, one of the other campers laid the Golden Fleece on your branches. Obviously, it was powerful enough to purge the poison, heal you of your wounds, and undo Zeus's magic."

The smattering of freckles across her face stood out starkly.

"Percy, she's going to faint," Annabeth scolded him, finally recovering.

"No, I'm fine," Thalia stuttered, her eyes still stuck on Percy. "How long? I don't recognize you at all, and one of the Big Three would have had to go on the run young."

"It's a very long story, but I'm...new. I got here three days ago. But you've been in the tree for seven years."

Thalia was shaking. "And how old are you?"

He smiled a bit. "Sixteen, as of three days ago. Let's get you to the infirmary."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very sorry for the month and a half pause, my previous illness came back to haunt me and damn near killed me. I've actually been officially diagnosed with chronic bronchitis, which is both good and bad. Good, because that means that I don't have to fight my doctors for antibiotics because they think I have the flu. Bad, because I've had bronchitis so many times it's ridiculous. 
> 
> The good part is that I'm back, even though I'm not writing just yet. This has six or seven pre-written chapters. I'm updating today because I've remembered and I'm afraid that I'll forget tomorrow. See you next week!  
> -Ruby


	3. The Starving Daughter of Zeus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka, that time when Percy laid out his life and alt!Thalia told him that he needed to reevaluate said life.

"So," Thalia said between bites of her third hamburger with lettuce, onion, cheese, and (somewhat bizarrely) taco sauce on it. "That long story. About why you're sixteen and not dead and we aren't at war."

"Very long story short, I killed Kronos and his death transported me back in time. I woke up here to my mentor not knowing who I was, confronted with a face that had been dead for months, and panicked. I ran to the creek and after giving quite a few people some cold feet, I realized that I had gone back in time. That was three days ago."

She had frozen, her mouth thankfully empty as it hung open, her blue eyes wide, her hamburger halfway between the table and her mouth. After a moment, she swore. Loudly, creatively, and in three different languages. "So you replaced your younger self or what?"

"Oh no. Percy Jr. is in archery right now, trying not to shoot himself in the eye."

Thalia almost spewed her drink.

"Sorry," he said. "I'll try to time my comments away from your drinking."

"Thanks," she coughed.

"So, I've already done my share of saving the world, which is why I can be sixteen and not dead or at war."

"Did we win?"

"If we didn't, I weakened Kronos enough that Annabeth or Grover could easily kill him."

She paused. "Old Annabeth and Grover. Gods, that's confusing. I'm still on the fact that she's fourteen and not seven."

"Try having lived it."

"Ha!"

Thalia picked up the last of the vegetables one-by-one that had dropped out of her burger and back onto the plate and put them into her mouth, before getting up and making another burger, again sacrificing part of it into the brazier. When she settled back down, the nymphs staring after her in disbelief, she shook her head. "How are you not crazy yet?"

"Annabeth," he said flatly.

She pointed a fork at him. " _That_ makes sense." She proceeded to stab a cob of corn and scrape some of the kernels off with her teeth. All he could think of was a Viking, strangely enough, and despite the fact that corn wasn't all that popular with the Vikings. She chewed slowly, mulling his story over in her head. "So. Verifying the timeline of your jacked-up life." Thalia swallowed, picking up a spoon and scraping the whipped cream off of her Jell-O.

He could feel a smile growing on his face. "Yeah?"

"Twelve-year-old you and a couple of others go on a quest to find the Golden Fleece to save the Camp, which just so happens to bring _moi_ back to life." The spoon gestured to the various people in the area as she named them, nearly carving out her own eye when she gestured to herself. "The reasons to go on the quest were many and varied, but mainly concern the fact that Luke Castellan—my _best friend_ —poisoned my tree. And you have no idea how weird that sounds, considering that I _was_ that tree."

He snorted.

"Following that you—and I mean _you_ , not the almost-thirteen-year-old kid running around somewhere around here—went on a quest with myself, Grover, a daughter of Hades, and two Hunters. I have to admit, that takes balls. Cheers to you." She slurped her Jell-O cup clean. "You then proceed to rescue a goddess, piss off a Titan, hold the sky with a broken leg, and bring Artemis back to Olympus in time for the Winter Solstice. I have to wonder, if that was you at thirteen, what kind of a death wish do you have at sixteen?"

He grinned cheekily at her.

"You go back home—and I want to be there when Ms. Sally gets introduced to both Percys, by the way—for a relatively quiet few months, only to almost get blown up by vampire seductresses at the beginning of summer right before you and Annabeth go out on a not-date. You get sucked into a war and a dangerous labyrinth, befriend a hellhound and a two-thousand-year-old supposedly dead guy, confront a grieving son of Hades being manipulated by a malevolent ghost and the Titan Lord, blow up Mt. St. Helens, go on a wild goose chase for some string, and arrive back at Camp just in time for battle. Labyrinth is destroyed, you gain an ally in a Prince of the Underworld, become owner of a tame hellhound, and grieve for those who died in the battle. Oh, and somewhere in there, you crashed your own funeral. Props for that." She fist bumped him. He was laughing at the list, and if he hadn't lived through all of that, he'd be calling her a liar because just reeled off like that—well, it sounded ridiculous. How could he still be alive?

"I get the feeling that you think I should be dead. Did you want to take my pulse?" he spluttered out through his guffaws.

She poked her fork into his chest. "Mister, I don't _think_ that you should be dead. I _know_ that you should be dead."

Thalia ignored his laughter and continued on. "So, you're fifteen now. Another nine months has come and gone, and you are now fifteen years old and leading an army of mortals to war against an army of immortals." She stopped for a moment, considered that sentence, and shrugged. She looked at him, and he could imagine that he was as pale as the Styrofoam plate she was eating off of, because it now seemed like a miracle and a half that so many had survived in their war against the monsters and Titans and the occasional minor god and goddess. He was reviewing the battle in his head as she went over the last few months (for him, anyway) and trying to figure out how he survived to be blasted into the past. The satyrs. The centaurs. Lord Hades, of course, stalled the battle until he could kill Kronos.

"Hey. Kelpy. Hellooooo?"

He looked at her. "Yeah?"

"You zoned out there for a mo'."

He exhaled, resolving to attempt to be more polite to Hades when he saw him next. "Yeah. Sorry. Thinking about the war."

She looked at him, and all of a sudden she didn't look a few months off of sixteen. She looked about forty instead, eyes lined and shadowed, a sardonic smirk on her face. "How is it that the face of a sixteen year old can look like an eighty-year-old's face?" she asked bitterly.

It was weird how their thoughts were so alike. Annabeth and him were like that—well, they used to be like that. At the moment, they were having two different frequencies: he could go back and tune into thirteen-year-old Annabeth, but she couldn't catch up to sixteen-year-old Percy yet. Thalia, however, knew enough about time distortions and horrible dreams that they could follow each other's thought patterns from the subtleties of the other's face.

Look at him. He was using big words. Where's Annabeth?

He inhaled, trying to control the emotions that had just shattered in his chest like a dropped vase. Thalia was watching him, her electric blue eyes studying him. His chest was quivering. He couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying—or possibly a bit of both as Thalia leaned across the table and put her hand in his. He could tell that he was seriously stressed out just by the fact that he had gone from dying from laughter from Thalia's list of his terrible heroics (because seriously, no one should go through that much in a couple of months) to struggling to breathe from the elephant of emotions stomping on his chest.

His head was bowed, Thalia's hand on his cheek. He wasn't sure if she had put it there or if he had put it there. He didn't know. He didn't particularly care, either.

"I miss her so much."

His voice was quiet.

Thalia's smile was tremulous. "I miss her too."

It's really sad when two different people from two different timelines are grieving for the same person when said person is sitting not three tables away from them. His was sixteen-year-old Annabeth (joking, confiding, fighting each other, fighting together, running, surviving, _kissing_ ) , and hers was seven-year-old Annabeth (bubbly, scared, crazy smart, hammer, inquisitive, betrayed).

Thalia didn't get another tray of food, both of them reveling in the bittersweet moment and watching thirteen-year-old Annabeth (so close and yet not anywhere near) smile and laugh and debate with her half-siblings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, yesterday went down the drain. I'm currently packing for an extended trip, so next week's update may be late as well.


	4. Sally Has the Patience of a Saint

When he walked into the house, Sally burying her head in her hands at the fact that there were now two Percy Jacksons in the world and Thalia patting her shoulder and unhelpfully laughing her head off, it seemed to be missing something. It took him a moment, but he realized that Paul wasn't there. If he remembered correctly, he wouldn't even be finding out about him until this winter, just after the quest.

Oh, gods. The quest. So many people died because of that one quest. Could he change it? Save Bianca and Zoë? Would he get in trouble with the Fates? The time line had already been altered because of his presence, was that silent permission to mess with it more? He hadn't been rendered intangible or been smited by a blast of lightning or whatever the Fates did to quickly get rid of meddling demigods. But, if indeed this was silent permission to jack up the timeline, why was the previous one necessary? Experience? Attachment? Possibility? Was this just one big paradox loop? Would he go back to his reality when someone pissed off Kronos and stabbed him with a cursed knife again? And, more importantly, how would Thalia dodge her sixteenth birthday if he saved Zoë?

His brain hurt.

Percy Jr. had disappeared somewhere—probably up to his room—and Thals and Sally were talking quietly in the kitchen. They were probably discussing him and time paradoxes and making their own brains hurt.

He felt restless, so he went up to the bathroom. When he glanced at myself in the mirror, he did a double take. He didn't look sixteen. At least not with his current restless/constipated face. More like late twenties. He tried to smooth out the frown between his eyebrows by smiling brightly at himself, but that was so fake that he dropped the smile immediately and raised an incredulous eyebrow at himself instead.

Look. More big words. See, he can too use them in everyday language, Annabeth!

He turned on the faucet, letting the water run. He made a ball with the water, then a cube, then a pyramid. He added detail, creating a miniature, crumbling Egyptian pyramid. The water flowed, creating the Luxor casino in Las Vegas, with all of the support structures and glass, missing only the light at the top. The shape changed again, the support structures of the Luxor Casino melding into the columns of the Coliseum, into the Parthenon, into the Empire State Building. Then the Empire State Building's base smoothed and rounded, forming the base of a tree, and the transformation crept upward before exploding into hundreds of tiny little watery leaves. They rustled in an invisible and unfelt wind before they all fell off, splashing back into his palm. He flicked his fingers and the droplets scattered, evaporating into steam mid-flight and fogging up the mirror. He trailed his finger across the smooth surface, the icy, swirling, fern-like patterns of frost following. In a couple of seconds, the entire mirror was frosted over, and half a minute later, the majority of it was nothing more than cold water. It plucked itself off the mirror and drained down the sink, and discovered that he had an audience of Thals, Sally, and Jr., all looking impressed.

After a moment, he was sure that his ears were going to burn themselves off the sides of his head. Thankfully, Thalia broke the silence. "That was _extremely_ cool and all, but do you mind if I pee? Alone, preferably?"

Oh, gods. He could have gone the rest of his life without having to know when Thalia needed to pee.

And Sally was _not_ helping. Her crinkled eyes, hand covering her mouth, and shaking shoulders were not at all subtle. Percy Jr., thankfully, was blushing just as much as he was as he scrambled to get out of the bathroom and all but shoved Thalia in and shut the door behind her.

After his mother and Percy Jr. wandered off, he wandered amongst the apartment as well. He felt restless, twitchy, like something was wrong. Everything was wrong with this, to be honest.

"Are you okay?"

He whirled around, and then relaxed. Thalia had found him hiding in the living room. Honestly, a sucky hiding place, but generally no one used it in the Jackson household.

"Sort of. Not really."

She quirked a grin that seemed almost like a grimace. "I'd offer to spar, but a) we don't have space and b) I'm still getting used to…" Thalia gestured helplessly at herself, " _this_. I mean, I have _boobs_."

Percy slapped a hand over his face, blushing furiously. "I forgot just how _not shy_ you are."

She seemed like she didn't know if she wanted to be concerned for herself or just snigger. "Why did you forget?"

"Well, the last time I saw you in my last timeline we were in the middle of a war, and otherwise distracted. The time before that, we'd been abducted by Persephone to find something." He waved it off. "I can't even remember what it was. Something about a key. There was one time where I was in Virginia visiting Annabeth over the summer and literally tripped over your camp and almost got myself shot. The last time I did these couple of months, you were busy shunning me and being possessive and overprotective of Annabeth. Blasted me a couple times. Almost got into a serious power fight and blew the Camp to pieces. A couple days after that, I didn't see you for a bit because you were on that quest that I told you about, and then you joined the Hunters the day before your sixteenth birthday. So yeah, the last time that I saw you being _you_ and not _Hunter_ or even just straight up _fighting for my life over here!_ was years ago."

Thalia shrugged. "Fair enough. What were we fighting about?"

"Annabeth had been kidnapped and you were blaming me. When we lost Capture the Flag, you again blamed me because I saw an opening and took it. It was a whole bunch of tension that got released over something really stupid."

She grimaced. "Yes, let's put two hotheaded, grieving, powerful demigods on the same team so when something goes south, they can blow up the area. Good idea."

Percy sniggered and sagged into a chair.

"So," Thalia prompted. "Are you feeling better?"

He rolled his head. "No, not really. My skin just…itches. I don't really know why, I mean I've got the…" His voice died abruptly, remembering his burnt and flaked skin from when he had first arrived. Burnt and flaked skin that should have been invulnerable.

"You have…what?" Thalia prompted.

It shouldn't be possible. Could a Titan's death be enough to erase a curse cast by a god or goddess that anchors oaths?

"Yo, Kelpy." Thalia was waving a hand in front of his face. "You in there?"

He stood. "In a moment. I think I know why I survived that blast."

She looked startled as he almost mechanically moved, and then picked up speed to the bathroom, stripping off his shirt and almost falling up the stairs. He flipped on the light and twisted to see his back in the mirror.

There was a scar—a large raised disc about the size of a Girl Scout cookie of scar tissue in the center of his lower back. Thalia stepped into the doorway.

"Okay," she said slowly. "You have a scar. In a rather odd place, admittedly, but it's still just a scar. What's so special about it?"

He laughed. "That's my last reminder of the Achilles' Curse, Thals."

She opened her mouth as if she were about to scream. Then Thalia shut her mouth, took a deep breath, and opened it again: " _You had the Achilles' Curse?_ "

"Only way I could survive Kronos," Percy muttered. "I'll never know if the Curse is cancelled when one Curse recipient kills another or if the Curse was literally burnt off of me by the explosion, or even if the Curse simply doesn't transcend between universes or timelines or whatever the hell I've gotten myself into now."

Thalia took another deep breath. "You had the _Achilles' Curse_?" Her voice perilously close to a shriek towards the end. " _How?!_ "

"Thalia—"

"Thalia, are you all right?" Sally had sneaked up on them. She probably wanted to make sure that they weren't going to blow up the house.

"Do you know how _dangerous_ that was?!" Thalia shrieked. "It has a hundred percent fatality rate for everyone but guy who _invented_ the damned thing!"

Sally was looking alarmed as Thalia ranted.

"Thalia!"

Thalia shut up at the expression on Percy's face. Percy Jr. was peeking out his room curiously.

"Thalia, she knew about it. She gave me her blessing."

" _Why? Why_ would do that to yourself?!"

Percy grabbed her and shook her roughly. "Because we were losing the war, Thalia. Because I turned sixteen in less than a week, because I led an army of forty demigods, thirty Hunters, and perhaps a hundred satyrs against an army of immortals, because a cousin of ours—and I'll give you a hint: it wasn't Demeter—narrowed down the missing factor as to why Achilles' survived the Curse and it was do it or _die_. Because the waters surrounding Atlantis were turning green with the merfolks' blood, because Hades struggled to keep the Titans contained in Tartarus and had more paperwork regarding the dead than ever before, because the streets of Olympus ran with blood by the time Kronos exploded me back in time. Because the gods were occupied with Typhon, because we had so many deaths and traitors that we were down to a fraction—perhaps a fifth—of what we once had been." He shook her again and all but roared in her face: " _BECAUSE WE WERE AT WAR_ and I thought I was going to die anyway."

And then he shoved her aside and stormed out of the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought that I was appropriate that I made a twitter account for you guys to come holler at me a year after I made an AO3 account: @redheadauthor
> 
> How many of you saw Riordan's post about the word "cliffhanger"? I about died laughing.
> 
> Edit: it occurred to me after I read through this again that you guys might have issues about me commenting on Riordan's obsession with cliffhangers while leaving you with the above. Um. Sorry? XD


	5. To Spit in the Face of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Zeus shows that he can be a parent, even when it can't be apparent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I'm so sorry for the chapter summary, but it was THERE. X'D

Later, he was grateful that he still had his shirt clenched in his hand, because he attracted a couple of odd looks on why there was this random, scarred teenager wandering around with his shirt off for no apparent reason.

For some bizarre reason, after hours of walking, he found himself at the Empire State Building. The lights were orange now.

There would be no blue lights for his Sally back where he was from. She'd be devastated. So would Annabeth, when she recovered from the blast and realized that he'd been vaporized along with Kronos.

On a whim, he went inside. The doorman looked at him the moment he walked in, one eye on him and one eye on the guy he was talking to.

"Just a minute, Joe," the doorman said.

"Yeah, sure."

Percy approached.

"All the way up?" the doorman asked.

Percy considered that for a moment, and then shook his head. "No."

The guy rummaged around in his desk, and then handed him a card that looked similar to the one he used to get to Olympus. "Observation deck?"

Percy cracked a smile. "Spit in the face of parental rivalries, of course."

He cracked up. "Don't get us blasted, will you? Fried all the electronics in the top twenty floors the last time it happened."

"I will do my best," Percy promised.

The elevator ride was much less rockier than the one to Olympus, something that Percy found reassuring in a very odd way.

Percy stayed there long after the observation deck had closed. When someone appeared next to him, he wasn't startled.

"Why are you in my domain, demigod?"

Percy's lips twitched with suppressed laughter. "Do you want me to answer that honestly?"

The man—god—beside him shifted, and his tone had changed from foreboding to curious when he replied, "Yes."

Percy laughed quietly. "Because I just screamed at your daughter and wanted to hide from her, and this would be the last place she looked. And also because I think that your rivalry with my father is extremely stupid and I felt like spitting in the face of it. Because when I was little, I always liked high spots when I wanted to hide, and scared the crap out of my mother when and where she found me a couple of times."

It began to rain.

"Sorry," Percy added. "You said 'yes'."

"You don't sound very sorry, demigod."

"I _am_ sorry that I screamed at your daughter. But I'm not sorry about poking you in the rivalry or liking high spaces."

"Your father isn't very happy with you at the moment."

Percy snorted with laughter. "Rarely is my father entirely happy with my decisions. Proud, maybe, but most definitely not happy."

Zeus shifted to fully look at Percy. "And how do you know this?"

Percy looked at him levelly. "In my experience, gods are stalkers. You know. Or did Dad block that part off from the rest of you guys?"

Blank was not a good look on Zeus.

"Never mind," Percy said, sighing. "I sat on Dad's throne to get his attention, beat his arguments with logic, and refused to move until he got off his ass and helped. Or, in a general summation of my life, I gave his grey hairs grey hairs. It tended to be fun or dangerous though, so I kind of understand."

The god looked…amused, almost.

"Are you expecting stories?" Percy asked, laughing. "I could give _you_ grey hairs on some of the things your daughter and I had done."

He coughed. "Yes, demigod, now that you mention it—"

"A couple months from now, your daughter was assigned to a quest. But before we ever got to it, Lady Artemis asked her brother for a favor to carry her Hunters and the demigods that had gone on a mission—and failed rather spectacularly, actually, now that I think about it—to Camp. Apollo, though I don't hold ill feelings towards him even though I probably should, decides that he wants Thalia to drive. Thalia, who has never even driven an automatic car a day in her life, much less a stick shift bus with a dozen gears that could blow up the world _and_ fly."

He wasn't watching Zeus turn pretty colors of puce, he wasn't watching Zeus turn pretty colors of puce, he wasn't watching…

"Anyway, Thalia ended up bringing summer to some parts of New England and plunging other parts into deep freeze. Then, when we got to Camp, she crashed the sun car/chariot/bus/thingamajig into the lake. The naiads were _not_ happy with her."

Percy couldn't tell if Zeus was trying not to laugh or trying not to puke. They seemed to be the same expression.

"Later, during the quest, we were being chased by this gigantic, pick-up-truck-on-steroids sized boar that I can't remember the name of. Thalia and I managed to get trapped between said boar and a cliff, with a very narrow goat trail leading away that the boar couldn't possibly go onto. Thalia made a beeline for the goat trail, and I made a beeline for the cliff."

"No wonder your father had grey hairs," Zeus grumbled.

Percy laughed. "Something that Thalia didn't remember at the moment, I think, was that monsters are generally pretty dumb. That boar was going after Thalia and she'd fall off the cliff anyway with no preparation. I managed to steal her shield for a moment, get it under us, and go snowboarding down the cliff fairly safely with the boar right after us. The thing was pretty dazed and in no hurry to go after us after that. We actually used it to get pretty far before we let it go."

The god shook his head slowly, as if in disbelief or denial.

"About a year after that quest, the two of us and another met again in Central Park and were kidnapped, essentially, by Persephone, who screwed up big time and had something stolen. The three of us were to rescue it."

"Who was the third?"

Percy shook his head. "This winter," he promised. "And when you see, remember my words of _they are not the heroes_."

"Of?" Zeus prompted.

"Nope," Percy said. "Anyway, we tracked down the number one expert on cheating death. Of course, he was in the Fields of Punishment. Sisy's—I can't pronounce his full name, but that was what he called him—punishment was rolling a boulder up a hill forever. Thalia took it for a moment so that we could question him on how to get to whatever it was, and when she decided that she'd had enough, she just let it go." Percy snorted. "It almost flattened the rest of us. I remember Sisy swearing us to Hades, and him laughing and retorting that we were already there. Later, after we've battled demons—both literal and emotional—and a Titan, mind-wiped said Titan, collected the whatever-it-was, and brought it back to Persephone and Hades, Thalia turns to me asks me, 'so, still up for dinner? I'm thinking burgers at McHale's.'"

Zeus chuckled softly. Percy did a double take.

"Are you having fun chatting up my father?"

Zeus vanished instantly in a puff of concentrated air that knocked Percy back a step.

"Yes, actually. I think I convinced him to not vaporize me on sight." There was a rumble of thunder, and Percy shrugged. "Well, as long as I bribe him with stories about you, I guess. When I run out of stories I'll be in trouble."

Thalia burst out laughing.

"Okay, inside," Percy said, ushering her inside with less of a view of the ground _very_ far below. The elevator stood open, waiting for them.

"So, how are you not dead again?" Thalia prompted as the elevator descended.

Percy laughed a little. "Not entirely sure."

"Good, we don't have to worry about my father blasting you into tiny bits. Now you have to worry about _me_ blasting you into tiny pieces."

Percy whitened a bit.

"What were you _thinking_ , scaring your mother like that?"

Percy rubbed a hand over his face. "I got used to my mom slapping me upside the head mid-rant and then hugging me tightly enough to crack a rib or three. She normally…never let me get that worked up. And all I can think about is that there won't be any blue lights for her to signal that I made it in the old timeline, if it still exists at all. I know that you're basically doing the same thing as I am, but you aren't wondering how they are reacting to the fact that you are dead to them, if they're okay or typing so furiously that she makes her fingers bleed or if Annabeth is obsessively training again. Or if they've figured out that I got sent somewhere and they're searching for me. And I don't think that I can ever go back."

Thalia wrapped him in a hug. Full-bodied, two armed hug. Percy actually stuttered out unintelligible things for a moment, because Thalia was _not_ a touchy-feely person.

"You just got done with a war and now you're thrown back into the thick of things," Thalia said into his shoulder. "Of _course_ you're stressed out and wired like an Energizer War Bunny."

The elevator dinged open. Neither of them paid it any mind.

Percy sputtered out a laugh, hugging her tightly. "I don't think that I would look very good pink with long ears."

She pulled back and studied his face for a moment. "It would definitely be an interesting look," she said, a grin tugging at her lips. She pulled back fully and gently pushed him out of the elevator. "C'mon. Let's go home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is chapter five. I have six chapters finished. Eep. And I'm trying to get the next chapter for ATC done, too. Fingers crossed, that will be done in time for next week.


	6. Gymnastics Can Be Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy helps Thalia out by helping her get used to being almost-sixteen rather than twelve.

Coming home was full of stilted conversation on where he and Thalia would be sleeping. Percy was ready to collapse into the guest bedroom's bed, and Thalia was welcome to join him or not. When suggested, Sally looked a bit wary, and the look on her face said it all. Thalia's "Yuck," preceded his "Ew!" by a heartbeat.

"She's like my _sister_ ," Percy added. "That's just…"

"Yuck," Thalia repeated, wrinkling her nose.

"Mom, you didn't think twice about Annabeth and I sleeping in close quarters on quests, but Thalia and I—"

"But _Annabeth_ —"

"You're right, she wouldn't do anything impulsive when she had time to think about it, but let's talk about life-or-death situations. Specifically, running from a newly awakened Titan Lord in the middle of a volcano," Percy retorted. "The phrase 'don't die, Seaweed Brain,' has a lot of meaning for me."

Thalia spluttered out a laugh. "Of _course_ she said that right after she kissed you. Oh, Annabeth."

"I almost got _killed_ because I was sitting there and trying to remember my own name," Percy said, laughing a little.

Sally buried her head in her hands, laughing. "Okay, shoo, you two. You've convinced me."

When Percy got up the next day, he could tell that Thalia had been talking with his mom about him. She was a lot more at ease with him, and seemed a little startled when he helped out in the kitchen.

"You can cook, Kelpy?"

"I live with Mom," he said, pressing a kiss to the woman's forehead as he passed. "Of course I know how to cook. I knew the theory and the bare basics of it now, but as the war went on, a lot of demigods got adopted by her, and then she was cooking for half the Camp. Everyone brought a couple of dollars each time to help pay for the ingredients, we saved up to be able to buy a sturdier table with expansion capabilities and benches rather than chairs, and air mattresses were stored all over the house. Trust me, those who weren't setting up the table for the thirty or forty-odd people and didn't have a habit of exploding things or setting things on fire were helping Mom cook."

Percy Jr. was nodding. "We've already had something like that."

Percy Sr. cocked his head. "Oh! I remember that. I invited Clarisse just to see her face."

"It was hilarious," Percy Jr. agreed. "Didn't actually expect her to come, though."

Percy Sr. shrugged. "She's pretty cool when she isn't trying to kill you. Or at least run you through with her spear. Or even just give you a swirly."

Percy Jr. burst out laughing.

"Swirly?" Thalia questioned. "When did that happen?"

"First day conscious," Percy Jr. said. "Annabeth was showing me around, Clarisse found the 'new guy' and was going to give me _their_ initiation to the Camp."

"It didn't work very well," Percy Sr. noted.

"I ended up exploding all the toilets and dousing everyone but myself with water and sewage," Percy Jr. said.

"Annabeth's face was torn between grossed out, impressed, and confused," Percy Sr. said.

"This was before any of us knew my parentage, so she was trying to figure out who my parent was. I think she was denying it, personally," Percy Jr. added.

"She wasn't denying it by the time we got to Capture the Flag," Percy Sr. said, snorting. "That cold shoulder was even colder than 'you drool in your sleep'."

Both Thalia and Sally laughed at that.

"You two are giving me whiplash," Thalia said.

"Sorry," they said simultaneously.

Sally almost snorted water up her nose.

"That doesn't help!" Thalia protested, laughing a bit.

* * *

"Did you want to spar?" Percy asked later, a little after lunch.

"Where? This doesn't have enough room and Camp is over a hundred miles away."

"There's an abandoned gym a little ways from here where I tend to spar when Mom kicks me out of the house to practice somewhere else where I can break someone else's stuff," Percy said, grinning a bit.

Thalia snorted. "Let me get changed."

Percy told his Mom where they were going, and they were off. Thalia jumped about a foot and levelled a knife at the throat of someone who emerged from the gloom. "Relax, Thals," Percy said, pushing her arm down. "Local gang. We're not staying, just practicing. You are welcome to watch."

"No they aren't!" Thalia protested.

"Watch, appreciate, and be silent," Percy said levelly, ignoring Thalia in favor of the other teen.

"Deal," the teen said. His voice was gravelly from smoking.

"Percy!" Thalia growled, elbowing him.

"Not negotiable, Thalia." He toed off his shoes.

"They're just going to _watch_ —"

"Thals, there are girls here too," Percy said, amused. "Now really, are we sparring or not?"

With a glance around, she took a deep breath and nodded.

They shifted into fighting stances.

"No weapons, no other abilities," Percy laid out. "Trickery and fighting dirty is to be expected. No matches or wins, this is to let you get adjusted. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

She launched herself at him, feet fully leaving the ground with all her weight behind a punch. Percy caught her and swung her around, letting her go on the other side. Thalia rolled as she hit the ground, coming up standing and approaching him again in quick, short steps, bouncing back and forth in a zig-zag pattern. A punch was thrown, followed by a lightning-fast high kick that almost clipped his jaw. She danced around him, poking at his defenses and seeing where he was weak. Thalia surprised him by getting in close, throwing elbow jabs—there was a furious exchange of blows in close quarters, blocked and hit, splitting Percy's lip and bruising the side of Thalia's neck, before he regained the upper hand. They were close enough that he could feel her shift backwards, and he stuck out a foot and tripped her.

She sprawled on the floor, quickly recovering and somersaulting backwards to come up in a crouch. They circled each other, both breathing deeply and grinning at the adrenaline, and Percy listed off the things that he could see: "You're bigger than you're used to, and it impedes your reaction time. You're still getting used to your new center of gravity and it shows in some of your blows, especially the ones that you throw your body behind. You're also stiff. Have you been stretching?"

Thalia nodded. "It's not anywhere near as bad as it was. It hurt for me to move at first. Every step was a chore. I couldn't even sit down for the first few hours."

"Stretching, gymnastics, sparring," Percy said. They were still circling each other.

"Gymnastics?"

"Keeps you limber and helps build up different muscles depending on the routine. You've got the right build for it. Your muscles have atrophied a bit, not anywhere near what I would expect, but still there," he explained. "It's also something that you can do in the house."

Thalia nodded.

"Do you want to stop and stretch or keep going?"

"Stretch," Thalia immediately said, flopping on the floor.

"Where's most of your problems?" Percy asked. "Arms, legs, or back?"

"Back and legs," she admitted.

"Roll your head forward, as far as you can. It should stretch out your neck and back muscles. Hold that for as long as you want. When I started, I did it to a count of ten."

"What do you do now?"

"Twenty or thirty, depending on how sore I am."

She was silent for a moment, before looking up. "Why do you stretch? That's kind of…well…"

Percy snorted. "Girly? Stretching is the only thing that lets me beat Annabeth sometimes."

Thalia thought about that. "Fair enough."

"You done with that position?" Percy asked.

She nodded shortly.

"Get up," he instructed. "Plant your feet two or three feet apart. Keep your head bowed and _carefully_ lean forward until you encounter resistance or pain. Normally, I just let my weight stretch myself out, but with your stiffness I don't want you doing something that could potentially sprain or strain something, especially not in your back. If you can't hold it for ten seconds, then ease up."

He walked her through her stretches and a couple of his own, which took almost a full forty five minutes.

"I'm going to ache so bad tomorrow," she groaned as Percy helped her up.

"We'll work on it," Percy promised. "Stiffness, center of gravity, reaction time. In that order."

"Why?" Thalia asked as they left the gym. "You barely know me, and I just came out of a seven-year-long coma. What drew you to me?"

Percy was quiet for a moment. "I don't…really know, honestly. I already know that I wanted to get to know you better. I remember when Artemis offered you a way out of the prophecy through her immortality, that I was a little disappointed. You had this whole man-hating thing going after you learned about Luke poisoning you, and thirteen-year-old me was probably not helping."

Thalia laughed a little.

"I've always thought of you as a cousin or sister, though I got to shock Dad when I implied that we could be a couple, and that was fun," Percy said, grinning. Thalia punched him, but she was smiling too. "But now I'm training twelve-year-old mini-me, and Annabeth…is almost painful to watch." Thalia's smile faded as she nodded. "In the Styx, you have to anchor yourself to your mortal side. The Styx only works on demigods, I think, so if a mortal somehow found out how to get in and out of the Underworld and decided to go take a refreshing dip in the Styx, they'd be burned to death. Even if they had their mother's blessing. But anyway, the anchor is always a person, the most important person in their lives."

"Your Mom or Annabeth?" Thalia asked softly.

"Annabeth," Percy admitted. "Mom was close, though. But even before the Styx, I'd always had someone to anchor myself to. Annabeth was attached to mini-me, and I was a stranger to Mom. Clarisse would probably laugh at me, Nico is a hyperactive fanboy of a ten year old—" Thalia burst out laughing, and Percy grinned wryly before continuing, "and Chiron has many more loyalties than to me. That left you, basically."

"I'm someone to…support. To support and support you in return."

Percy nodded. "Fatal flaw is loyalty. I tend to attach myself to a few people and go crazy when I don't have them within phone call distance."

She shook her head. "And when I wasn't there?"

"I was either unconscious or scaring people to death with massive shows of power," Percy said dryly. "I thought Chiron was going to faint when I raised my hands and the creek erupted."

Thalia laughed. "I can't imagine Chiron fainting. How would he? I mean, he can't fall over backwards, so does he fall to the side or do his legs buckle and then he face plants into the ground or what?"

He buried his head in his hands and laughed helplessly. "Oh, gods," he groaned. "Thalia, why do you think stuff like that? That's just weird!"

"So says the Supreme Lord of the Bathroom," she said, poking his ribs.

Percy snorted with laughter as he entered the apartment. "Go take a bath. Put some salts in it, they're under the sink. No one uses them but Mom, so don't worry about boy cooties."

She shoved him into the wall, groaning as Percy laughed his head off at her reaction. Sally stood in the doorway to the kitchen with an eyebrow raised at the two of them.

"She okay?"

Percy made a so-so motion with his hand. "She was a tree for seven years. She's stiff, sore, adjusting to her new center of balance, and bigger than she's used to."

His mom winced. "Ouch." She stepped forward to hug him and then recoiled. "Go take a shower! You stink!"

Percy leaned forward and stole a kiss on her cheek before dancing away as she snapped her towel threateningly, both of them laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry about the late posting! My lovely cat decided that ripping up the keys on my keyboard was a good idea. My "d" key is still MIA, but is thankfully still usable. I'm moving my update time to Tuesday since I seem to be swamped on Sundays and Mondays now. :(

**Author's Note:**

> This is not--repeat: NOT--finished. I have almost 14K words done as of now and expect another 50K to come. Hang onto your hats. :)


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